Messaging Guide: Winning the Narrative on Safety, Accountability, and Justice

As organizers, we know our communities want and deserve safety, accountability, and justice. Unfortunately, our current political playbook is stuck in outdated “tough-on-crime” politics and rhetoric that do not reflect the will of our communities, criminalize communities of color, and have failed in recent election cycles. 

To move the conversation to be rooted in both good policy and good politics, we must ask not who is “tougher on crime,” but who is truly “serious about safety.” This messaging guide — which builds upon research conducted by Vera Action — has been compiled to help organizing groups tell a comprehensive, solutions-oriented story that rejects racialized “tough-on-crime” rhetoric and drives us toward the vision of safety, accountability, and justice our families need.